


Let's Be Together For A Day

by clarapaget



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: (because I'm going on a ski trip soon), M/M, maybe it's that one bed trope..., no Beast happened in this universe, overused but so good, ski trip, they are soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 04:46:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18161654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarapaget/pseuds/clarapaget
Summary: Quentin and Eliot get stranded due to a weather inclement and pretend to be dating so they can find shelter.





	Let's Be Together For A Day

**Author's Note:**

> requested by @wherephantomssleep on tumblr!

Eliot had promised something big, but like always, had trouble delivering fully on the actual promise. He’d done outlandish things before without plan, without reason; falling into something eagerly and only because he wanted to. Usually, these were contained in Ibiza, with Margo, who could actually control Eliot, however, minimally. She would recount later that Eliot was merely a wild creature unable to be contained. That if he had wings, he would never use his feet again; if he had a fountain of money, he would never work another day in his life (though, even without the fountain of money, Quentin swore he had never seen Eliot work a proper job).

“I’m going to take you on a ski trip,” Eliot declared to Quentin on a Monday. He’d just returned from class, overwhelmed with a new stack of books to read and take notes on; so for Eliot to pile an additional task unto him stressed Quentin to the core. His mind tumbled, billowing like an unrestrained curtain in a summer wind.

“Do you even know how to ski?” Quentin promptly asked Eliot, who simply shrugged and replied, “I can always learn there.”

Preferring a ski trip to note-taking, after all, Quentin agreed to the trip. He packed his number one winter essentials: big, warm sweaters and fuzzy socks. Then, through common sense and thinking, packed double, for Eliot. Eliot typically only wore what he wanted, not for the weather. This had been countably proved time and time again.

Eliot wanted to be conventional and take a car; though he spelled his luggage into the trunk. With the trunk packed, Eliot slid into the driver's seat and beckoned to Quentin, who, with a heavy sigh, took the seat up front next to Eliot. A grin passed across Eliot’s face; it was devious and inviting. It would’ve been foolish for Quentin not to accept the idea of this trip.

The drive was long and Quentin spent most of the time with his forehead pressed against the car window, daydreaming slightly. From the window, he watched people on the sidewalk, on their phones, minds so involved in things he couldn’t even pretend to care about. Even still, he could feel the eyes of Eliot skim him once every few minutes; intrigued, worried, Quentin didn’t pay enough attention to make a proper hypothesis out of that.

“How’s Alice?” Eliot finally asked. Every time before, Eliot always seemed reluctant to mention Alice. She’d spent a generous amount of time hanging out with Quentin; helping him with studies, joining him for lunch, sitting with him in the dim corners of Margo and Eliot’s Physical Kids Cottage parties. Quentin looked away from the spots of snow that, in packs of loose clumps, littered the dead grass out the window and turned to Eliot.

Eliot’s eyes were on the road, his hands relaxed around the wheel. He drove smoothly, which surprised Quentin, for some odd reason.

“She’s good,” Quentin simply replied.

“Are you two a thing… or?” Eliot kept digging. “‘Cause it seems…”

“No,” Quentin cut him off. There wasn’t anything important else to add. She was a stone in his life; someone who helped keep him stable. Once, he had fallen hard for her, but there are some things that don’t work out and you have to accept that. At least, she told him when he asked her out once. Alice was lovely, but she preferred the fulfillment of Quentin as a friend; someone who would always be there for her, thick and thin; through gross tears and countless breakups. It, in turn, also happened that Alice confessed she rather thought Margo would make an attractive partner. For herself. And Quentin was fine with that and dropped the subject with her.

“Okay,” Eliot said. He dropped the topic of Alice quickly after that. Though, it piqued Quentin’s curiosity that that was all he brought up. They could’ve spoken about anything; talked endlessly as the blocky buildings morphed into beautiful, staggering mountains; as snow-capped huge rocks sitting in powdery white grass. The number of cars they saw decreased and Quentin turned up the heater in the car. He no longer let his forehead fall against the window; it had become an icy chill, something rather unfortunate.

The sun had begun to disappear, dipping behind the clouds and slinking away; merely a coin falling down, endlessly into a coin-slot. Stars began to twinkle and Quentin wondered why they were still on the road. Once or twice, they’d stopped at a gas station for bathroom breaks and cheap snacks, but there’d been no sign of life for some time.

“Are we lost?” Quentin asked. He’d pulled his sweater sleeves over his hands; they were becoming numb and Quentin desperately wanted to tuck himself into a warm bed, possibly beside a roaring fire.

“No, we’re nearly there. I hope,” Eliot said. “My fingers are fucking freezing.” A few more minutes passed as the road stretched on, the end of it vanishing in the empty darkness.

“Are you sure we’re not lost, El.” It came out more of a statement this time, not a question. A stressful declaration, in fact, and Eliot looked at him, with a frown. He slowed the car and pulled over to the side, parking.

He paused, mouth half open before finally admitting his mistake. “I didn’t want to have to tell you this, but I happened to check the weather back at the last gas station and it’s impossible to access right now. They got snowed in; we got snowed out,” Eliot told him. With wide eyes, Quentin gave Eliot an exasperated look, defeated almost. A warm breath-ghost left the lips of Eliot and clouded the air in front of him, shrouding him in a sort of mysterious mist.

“We’ve been driving. For TWO HOURS! And you didn’t tell me this?” Quentin almost shrieked. He was freezing everywhere; places that weren’t supposed to freeze! Eliot gave him an innocent, hopeful smile. Quentin took a deep breath, “Can we check if there’s a motel nearby?”

Though, it turned out that Wi-Fi didn’t reach them all the way out in the snowy, deserted lands of absolutely fucking nowhere. Quentin groaned and slipped down in his seat, trying to sink into the leather material of the seats. Eliot complained about not having any gloves, which prompted Quentin to pull out a pair, which prompted Eliot to say, “Those are horribly ugly. I am not putting those on my hands.” Instead of putting the gloves away, Quentin forced them onto Eliot’s hands, using a little restraining magic.

“Let’s drive around some, see if we can find someone trust worthy enough to accept us in,” Quentin said. “But this time I’m driving since you can not seem to be trusted with that.” He was met with pouty lips, but nonetheless, swapped the driver’s seat from Eliot.

It was quite dark outside; the stars were extremely bright in the expanse of the sky, but the abundance of mountaintops concealed many of them from view. The moon stood high, lighting a small path and, with the assistance of the car's headlights, Quentin searched the sides of the roads for houses of different variants. Perhaps someone would be nice enough to let them spend the night; get away from the chill that wrapped its thick arms around the men.

Finally, as if by the grace of some good lady God, Eliot pointed out a porch light in all the darkness. A sigh of relief washed through the car; an unknown reassurance of hope. Quentin pulled up to the curb and took in a deep breath; what if they accidentally awoke the people in the house? What if they were shunned away? What if, what if, what if. There was never an end to his constant questioning.

“What’s our story?” Eliot asked. He looked toward Quentin as if that were an entirely normal question to ask. Especially in a situation such as this. Stranded, cold, stress level set to the maximum.

“What is our what?”

“Our story. Why are we stranded? Who are we? What are we even doing out here?” Eliot explained to him. Yes, normal questions to think, absolutely!

“Well, we’re stranded because you didn’t tell me about the snowed-in ski resort. We are two students, and we’re out here because you wanted to take me skiing! For some reason!” He said the last part with a sour distaste and Eliot flinched slightly. Quentin looked toward him sheepishly and apologized. “Fine. Whatever you want, let’s just go knock on the door.”

They trudged up the front steps; the lawn was vacant and piles of snow sat ignored, vigilant and mighty in the night. The porch light flickered ominously; a bug buzzed, wings flapping wildly, trapped underneath the bulb. It would soon die from the heat, Quentin took note. He stood a little closer to Eliot, fearful at the emptiness the house presented.

Quentin, when they got to the door, raised his hand and rapped his knuckles against the wood. It was a piercing break in the silence that Quentin or Eliot didn’t even take notice of shortly before. They stood together, bodies close in the cold and also in some fright, for a few seconds, perhaps a minute, until the door began to creak open. A little old lady stood there donned in a bathrobe and fluffy slippers; a thick pair of glasses sat on the tip of her nose, anxious to fall off. Eliot smiled at her, widely, with a full set of teeth. Quentin, though, stood back a little, weary.

“Hello, dears,” she said with a broken voice, the one that attacks everyone breaching their late seventies. “It’s pretty late, what are you two boys doing out knocking on strangers doors. You’re gonna give someone a heart attack like that.” Quentin bit his lip, embarrassed now at his behavior.

“Oh! It’s late? We apologize, ma’am, it’s just, we’re stranded out here in the cold,” Eliot began, putting on a full show. “My boyfriend and I were simply wondering if you had a spare room for the night. I mean, I don’t want him to freeze to death! He’s too cute to lose to the hands of the frozen terrain.”

Quentin almost did a double take. It dawned on him that he  _did_  allow Eliot to take the reigns of the situation, but he didn’t think Eliot would make them a couple; that was the only situation his mind didn’t manage to conjure for a quote on quote “story.” However, he was cold, and if this worked, he’d be thanking Eliot; so he went along with it.

“Yes, very cold,” Quentin stuttered out.

“Oh, you poor boys!” the lady cried. “Come right on in, I can get a fire started if you would both like.” She ushered them in with her wrinkled hands, delicate and generous. Quentin nodded greedily towards her.

The lady led them to a towering fireplace; logs already chucked into the pit. Eliot and Quentin took a seat as the lady began to crinkle up newspapers, shoving them between the cracks of the logs. She lit a match and touched it to one of the newspapers. The flames licked the roof of the fireplace, pouring out a comforting orange light. The two men were flooded with warmth. Eliot took this opportunity to wrap one arm around Quentin’s shoulder, drawing him near, close to his chest. Quentin really didn’t mind. Next to Eliot, Quentin felt small and cared for; a puppy drawing itself close to the body of its owner.

A few minutes passed in silence with a subtleness that hung over the room, stealing the unnoticed pleasure from the fireplace, and they began to warm up, fingers able to stretch themselves out, though still dry and mildly cracking. The lady returned with mugs of cocoa and two thick, wool blankets. They looked as though they had been knitted from scratch, by her for someone else.

“My son comes by weekly to bring new logs for my fireplace. He’s so generous to me. He’s like you two,” she said with a gentle smile. “Come this way, you can sleep in his old bedroom for the night.” She led them up a flight of stairs, rickety and falling apart from overuse to a room at the end of the dimly lit hallway.

Inside the bedroom, a whole childhood came to life; posters covered the walls, sports decorum littered the bookshelves alongside great classics, and a giant stuffed bear, propped against one wall, head leaning a little to the right. And a singular bed with blue and white patterned covers.

“I’ll leave you two alone now,” the lady said and disappeared.

Eliot stretched his arms high and walked over to the bed, already starting to tuck himself in. The pace that all of this was happening at alarmed Quentin. Stranded, cold, stress level set to the maximum and now: shelter, boyfriends?, sharing a bed. This had started out so freely; Quentin setting aside his homework to do something mindless with one of his friends. Jesus, time went by so fast.

“Eliot, how are you acting like any of this is normal?” Quentin began to panic. He stood frozen to the spot.

“Well, we’re warm now, aren’t we? A nice woman let us stay in her gay son’s childhood bed. This is every Friday night for me,” Eliot shrugged. He pulled the covers over his body and sighed, ushering Quentin to join him. “Does it matter?”

“I mean… yes!” Quentin said. “It has to matter. Why’d you want to bring me on a ski trip anyways? You don’t even know how to ski! And you go and tell the old lady we’re dating. Eliot… please.”

Eliot sat up now. His mouth twitched; his cheeks were rosy from the cold and the fire. In the dimness of the room, Quentin could see the glow that spread across Eliot’s face. A secret passage hidden in his sunken cheeks, worn down, yet still dazzling… still glowing.

“Come join me,” Eliot said. Quentin did. He slowly crossed the room; it suddenly seemed frozen in time; like this moment was encapsulated in suspension, that nothing else got to exist during its occurrence; just the mere action of Quentin pacing across a room, heading toward Eliot who beckoned him from some random dude’s old bed.

“I never get to see you anymore,” Eliot began. “You’re always buried in studies. Hiding in the bookshelves of the library with Alice or something. Even at my parties, you’re just barely present. I miss you.” He looked down at his lap. Quentin’s shoulder touched Eliot’s; it felt so intimate; more intimate than any kiss one could receive.

This silenced Quentin; stunned him quite so. That one could miss him. He’d never thought of himself as someone to miss, only someone that others preferred not to be reminded of. This was such a high pedestal for him to place himself on. And in some sudden, unexpected act of bravery, he reached over and took Eliot’s hand, holding it tenderly. Eliot looked up at him, softly and shyly; something, Quentin had to admit, he’d never witnessed before.

“You missed me? And so we had to pretend to be dating?” Quentin whispered jokingly. “We could’ve been anyone.”

“Yes,” Eliot replied. “We could’ve been anyone.” He stopped there, choking on his voice as if saying another word would mute him forever. In some universe, he would’ve risked that, but in this universe, he wanted to keep his voice; keep his voice so he could praise Quentin head to toe with it, his… voice.

“I don’t mind that,” Quentin said. “Being boyfriends. I’ve only had one before, years ago so I might be a little rusty.” Eliot turned his head with a snap.

“Wait? All this time you could’ve told me you’ve dated a man before and instead you kept silent?” Eliot gasped. He was still holding Quentin’s hand; it felt right; natural and like home; he didn’t want to ever let Quentin go. They could be having a terrible argument, life-threatening, and Eliot still wouldn’t want to let Quentin’s hand go. He couldn’t.

“I guess there are some things that people keep from each other,” Quentin said referring to the weather disaster situation. “But also, it’s not even a big thing. I like who I like and that’s it. Julia once told me that I fall in love with anyone who pays attention to me for more than a minute. I think she might be right.”

“I hope she’s wrong,” Eliot said. “I’d rather you only fall in love with me.”

“Don’t worry, El, I’ve been in love with you since you said my name for the first time,” Quentin replied. This was the only moment that had to matter. There were a million things that could matter then: a flight landing safely, a nearly extinct species being saved, someone refusing to give up on life quite yet. But to Quentin and Eliot, who’d lived their lives quite miraculously thus far, this was the moment that mattered to them right now. This was the start to an even more miraculous future.


End file.
